PRAYER - Matthew 6 - Praying for the Kingdom

Welcome to the City Covenant Podcast.

We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.

Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.

Really grateful that you're here this morning.

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I know it takes a lot to visit a church that you're not familiar with.

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Or you can come to the two front rows up here, plenty of seats in the front row, which is great.

Um so okay, hey, here's what we're doing.

We have been looking, this is the 11th out of 12 weeks.

We're looking at the sermon series on prayer.

And um next week, my dear friend Carrie Bear.

I don't know if Carrie is here or not.

Oh, Carrie, there you are.

Look, Carrie is preparing for next week.

So Carrie is gonna preach about Habakkuk next week to close out our series.

And um, today we're talking about the Lord's Prayer.

We're talking about um the kingdom of God.

Um, you know, and so if you want, you can turn your Bibles now.

If you have a Bible from home, that's awesome.

It's Matthew 6.

If not, there's a Pew Bible right in front in front of you.

Um it's on page 831.

You know, we we're talking about the kingdom, the kingdom prayer today.

You know, when you when you think about kingdoms, everybody has a kingdom, right?

Everyone's building a kingdom in some levels.

Are you building your own kingdom?

Are you building God's kingdom, right?

Um we have something ultimately that all of us have, we put this ultimate hope in, this ultimate longing that says if we have this, everything's gonna be okay, right?

We have these dreams.

The problem isn't, for instance, that we have dreams.

The problem is sometimes our dreams become so much just about ourselves, actually, we we're building our own kingdom, right, rather than God's kingdom.

And so what we're gonna do is we are going to read the Lord's Prayer together, and then we're gonna look at these um these four sections.

We're gonna look at the king, Jesus, we're gonna look at the kingdom, we're gonna look at the the will of the king, and ultimately um the king's the king's treasure um uh people here on earth and and making earth more like heaven.

And so let's read this.

It's actually a short section, and and then we'll pray, and then we'll talk about it together.

This is what Jesus says.

This is how Jesus says we should pray, right?

I mean, if we're looking at a prayer series, this is a good place to go, right?

Jesus says this pray then in this way, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Friends, this is the word of the Lord.

Right?

So when we pray, thy kingdom come, we aren't praying for something that might happen one day way out there.

We're praying and saying, we've already seen the inbreaking of the kingdom of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ, peeking at the cross and the resurrection.

And Jesus, so we're praying now as we pray for your kingdom to come, we're asking for more of that kingdom, right?

We're in what theologians call the already, not yet of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is here, but not fully, right?

That's why we see the rule and reign of Jesus Christ as occurring, but we see these places where it needs to pervade more and more and more of the world, right?

And that, friends, is what we are praying for and asking for that to expand and that we then get to partner with, right?

So in some ways, we're asking then for God or for God to give us courage to live into the kingdom, right?

For us to live the way of the kingdom, right?

So I'm just gonna back up.

I'm gonna go technical for just a second on you, okay?

There's kind of four ways people think about the kingdom of God historically.

So one is we talk about the kingdom of God in an eschatological sense.

That's just a way of saying, like at the end, right?

At the end.

And so at the end of time, we talk about the kingdom of God as the return of Christ, right?

We we talk sometimes about the kingdom of God in a mystical way, right?

That in our hearts, the kingdom exists spiritually, right?

And and and is the and and if you look at it that way, you think that like this life, what it's about, ultimately is preparing your heart for heaven, right?

That that's part of it, right?

Um, actually, Constantine had this belief that the kingdom of God was mainly political, right?

Um, he thought that he was helping the kingdom of God along, and and so did uh here's what's funny about it, so did the Holy Roman Empire.

Um and actually it was funny, and so do culture warriors, liberals and conservatives, right, who think it's mostly about politics, right?

They think that's what the kingdom of God is about.

And then what's fascinating is up until about 50 to 75 years ago, virtually all Christians actually thought the kingdom of God was actually centered around the institutional church.

That that ultimately that the church and the kingdom of God were together, right?

That God primarily works through his church in the world.

That is historically, for 2,000 years, what um how most interpreters have understood it.

And I think it's probably for us for us, it is the best way to understand when we talk about the kingdom of God, is to look and say God is building his kingdom through the church, right?

Um, here's how we could look at it.

Ultimately, the kingdom of God is the fulfillment of the story of Israel.

So you go back, you think about this.

This there's a guy named Graham, I think his name's Graham Goldsworthy, and he would say that really what's happening, really what's happening in the kingdom of God, we go all the way back.

Do you remember in 1 Samuel?

Do you remember in 1 Samuel?

And the people said, We want a king, we want a king.

And then the prophets, you know, he goes back and forth, and Samuel's all bummed out because he's saying, Oh, they want a king, you know, I'm not good enough.

And and then he and then he says, Oh, you don't want a king.

If you get a king, it's gonna be really bad.

You know, he's gonna he's gonna tax you and he's gonna send us to war, and he's gonna do all these bad things.

And he said, No, give us a king.

And then so Samuel, do you remember the Samuel in prayer with Yahweh?

God ultimately tells Samuel, Samuel, don't worry about it.

It's not you, it's me.

They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me, right?

But ultimately, God, because he said, because ultimately I'm supposed to be their king, right?

Um, but in their own weakness, they feel as though they need a human king.

And it kind of sets us up for this moment.

The NT, right, would say that the establishment of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ is ultimately God finally is becoming king of Israel once again.

Right?

Graham Goldworthworthy would say that ultimately the kingdom of God is this.

It's God's people living in God's place under God's rule.

Some of you guys like to take notes, that's the thing.

God's people living in God's place under God's rule.

Let me spell this out for you.

In Genesis, God's people, Adam and Eve.

God's place, the garden, living under God's rule.

Right?

In the history of Israel, during the time of the judges, God's people, who are they?

We see the nation of Israel.

Then where are they?

In God's place, the promised land.

Under the uh, at that point, the the rule of God via the judges, right?

Today, basic, you know, from the New Testament forward, what is it?

God's people, the church, in God's place, where is it?

Is it still, is it geolocated in the nation of Israel?

No.

Is it geolocated in the Mediterranean basin, right?

Where it where it started?

No.

Did it um is it is it in India?

Is it in China?

Is it in Australia?

Is it in America?

Is it in Canada?

Is it in Russia?

And you say, yes, right?

So now what we see is God's place is everywhere, right?

So it's the church everywhere being ruled by Jesus Christ.

That's the kingdom of God, right?

That's what we're living in, right?

But the challenges, so frequently we we don't live into it, right?

Because the the challenge is so many of us think ultimately what the kingdom of God is really about is it's just ultimately about me and Jesus.

The challenge with that is if you believe what the kingdom of God is about is just Jesus' reign in your individual heart, the challenge is that leads us to having a weak ecclesiology.

It leads us to having a weak understanding of what the church is.

In fact, it leads us often to thinking you don't really need the church.

I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, okay?

But I'm just saying, even, you know, we're here in church, so you're less likely to think that, okay?

Um, because you're actually here.

But too many of us as Christians, we have a low view of church and we don't see that ultimately the kingdom of God is God working through the church.

Every Sunday we have this small experience of the kingdom of God, right?

Where you see this foretaste of every tongue and tribe and nation, crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

That's the ultimate point, the ultimate tell us, the end point of the kingdom.

That's where we're going, right?

Every week, just like Sarah and Mia talked about, um, you can have you can gather in groups and have these kingdom experiences in small groups throughout the city.

Right?

This is these small tastes of heaven, right?

Where we experience in a unique way God's presence, right?

His glory, his will being done, right?

His larger community.

And then all of us together participate as we pray, we participate in this kingdom becoming a reality.

Right?

So what we're doing when we pray and we say, God, would your kingdom come?

We're praying for a growth of that kingdom.

Right?

So if the kingdom is associated with the church, which is the uh is how Christians for 2,000 years have understood it, then we're talking when we're talking about the extension of the kingdom of God, we're talking about the growth of the Christian church and and not just numerically, right?

That what the church is doing in the world would go grow more and more and more, right?

Would go deeper and wider.

And so that what we're doing as a blessing to the world, kind of living out this original call of Abraham from Genesis 12, is that we are becoming more and more of a blessing in the world, right, on every level, right?

And we're caring for people's physical needs, we're caring for their spiritual needs, we're being a blessing to the culture, right?

And we're doing all of the above, uh, right, as we as we grow, uh, right?

This is where you look and say the Christian church can be this incredible hope for the world as we expand the kingdom of God, right?

You look and say, if if your great hope for the world is you want more widows and orphans taken care of in compassion, uh friends, then we need the kingdom.

We need Christians to step in and do that.

So part of us praying for the kingdom is saying, God, would you give me the strength, the willingness, the ability to go out and do what you've called us to do, right?

You want corporations to function honestly and without corruption, then we need the kingdom, right?

We need Christians to step in and run business as well, right?

You want to end the HIV AIDS pandemic, right?

You want clean water, you want to end slavery across the globe, then you need the kingdom of God.

But friends, too frequently we misunderstand our calling and we think that we have to make a choice between either the kingdom being in here or the kingdom being out there.

What happens in the kingdom of God is the kingdom of God starts in here and it necessarily goes out there, right?

So the kingdom of God is expanding through transformed lives, right?

So so what we see then is personal spiritual transformation leads to wider social transformation.

Amen.

Right?

It's not an either-or.

This is not something where we have to somehow divide or decide that you only get one.

Right?

This is one of the greatest weaknesses of evangelicalism is that evangelicals have often said, we don't want social justice.

We're gonna give that, you know, let's say that we're gonna do that to, we're gonna give that to the liberals.

That started in the early 1900s, and they said, okay, if the liberals got social justice and social concern, we'll just take personal piety, we'll just take personal transformation and and and divide.

We're only gonna take half of it.

The full gospel, friends, is seeing personal transformation in individual people's lives that then transform everything about them, right?

Amen.

That's how we do it.

So that's why we pray the Lord's Prayer.

The maybe one of our challenges is it becomes so frequent, it becomes so rote that when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we we just rehearse it.

We just skip right over it.

It's like you go to a baseball game and you go to a baseball game and you hear the star-spangled banner, and and you hear the whole song, you even sing the whole song.

But that moment, if you're at a baseball game, you're a Mariner's game, right, and you're listening to the Star Spangled Banner, or maybe you're you're even singing along, are you looking insane at that moment?

Are you thinking that about how much you care about the country, or are you waiting for the baseball game to start, right?

You're waiting for the baseball game.

No, maybe maybe some of you guys care more.

That's awesome, right?

I think for a lot of us, you know, you're just bypass the star single banner, right?

Oh, it's beginning of the school day, you're doing the Pledge of Allegiance, bypass over it.

You're not thinking this is what it's all about, right?

You're waiting for the real stuff.

I think sometimes that's what we do with the Lord's Prayer.

We we pray it, but we don't mean it.

We don't expect anything out of it, right?

And so what happens is then we miss the one of these central callings of our lives, right?

Is that the kingdom is we're praying, God, would your kingdom come?

Guys, you probably pray that multiple times a week.

But do you when you say the words, you just skip right over the words.

Right?

The the as we look and we're if we're kingdom people, then we're ambassadors of Christ, of like of Christ's embassy in the world.

That's what we're called to be, right?

Because we're seeing the expansion of the kingdom.

Some of you guys know uh several years ago, our family took a trip to um over to Europe, and we stopped in London.

And near where we stayed in London, um, I didn't even know this, I was like out on a run one day, and I happened to find this incredibly beautiful street.

And um, and it's funny because right as I go down this beautiful street, um, there were soldiers in front of this beautiful street, and I was just gonna keep on trucking, right?

And I run.

And and there's these large, um, there's a couple of like military trucks, and I'm still like jogging along, you know, because I'm trying to build up my VO2 max.

And so, you know, and so as I'm running, um, there's something that says, hey, in this area you can't take any photos.

Um the the nation of Israel says you can't take any photos in this little area, right?

And and then you look and say, Oh, the nation of Russia, you know, as you go up another 30 meters, the nation of Russia says, right here, be careful.

Pretty quick, even if you're not into political science, you've I figured out where I was, right?

I mean, this road in um right in the center of London, where there's a ton of there's a ton of embassies.

These embassies are actually like these tiny little portions of foreign soil in London, right?

So that's a sovereign little area of Russia, that's a sovereign little area of Israel, right next to each other, right?

And and this this street has, I don't know, maybe 30, 40 embassies.

And these are these tiny little inbreakings of that country in London.

The kingdom of God is this inbreaking in Spokane of God's rule and reign.

Right?

That's what individual churches are.

It's this this group, though, that is not trying then to take over culture, instead, it's trying to bless culture, right?

And and that we then are called as ambassadors to be representatives of that kingdom, right?

That's what we're learning to pray, right?

And so as we do that, we pray and say, God, would your kingdom come?

Would your will be done?

When I was in college, all I thought about was I want to live in your will, God.

I had this deep passion.

I so badly wanted God's will.

Do you know why?

Because I needed to get a job one day.

So I need to know God's God's will for my job.

Any of you guys ever prayed that?

Right?

And I was hoping maybe one day I'd get married.

So I needed, I really needed God's help here.

I needed God's will about a couple things.

You know, I said, God, help me find a wife, your will be done, right?

Help me figure out what to major in, your will be done.

Don't worry about the rest of it.

I've got that.

Right?

Um, sometimes I think we we mistake the idea of God's will and think it's about those real specifics.

And it's almost like God's will is lost and we simply need to find it.

Do you know God's will in the early church they thought is really simple?

Um, you know, because they're not asking questions about like who I should marry.

They're like, oh, good news, my parents already found somebody for me.

Right?

And they're like, where should I live?

Oh, good news.

I know where I'm gonna live.

I'm literally, when I marry the person my parents found for me, we're gonna actually build a new room next to my parents' house.

Oh, where am I gonna work?

I'm gonna work in my family business because that's what people do, you know, in Israel, right?

Back 2,000 years ago.

And they looked and said, but where, like long-term, where should I live?

You know, I mean, we've thought, you know, I mean, man, Miami is incredible.

You know, I mean, maybe maybe God wants me to live in Miami.

No ancient Jews or early Christians were saying maybe I should move to Miami.

And it wasn't just because they didn't know about the New World.

It's because people didn't move.

By and large, other than like missionary journeys, you just like you were from a town and that's where you lived, right?

That's what they did.

They're not thinking about God's will that way.

You know how they thought about God's will?

They thought of it as really simple because they said, oh, God's will is clearly written in scripture.

What's God's will?

It's that the proud would become humble, right?

God's will is that the the lonely would be welcomed.

God's will is that the poor are seen.

God's will is that enemies can become brothers and sisters, right?

God's will is that the oppressed wouldn't be forgotten, right?

That sinners would find mercy, right?

That the that the powerful would learn to serve, right?

That the broken would be restored, that forgiveness would replace vengeance, and that God's will is that death wouldn't get the final word because of the resurrection.

That's God's will.

That's what we're praying for, that's what we're leaning into, right?

When we pray, God, your will be done.

Ultimately we're saying, Jesus, would you make this place and my heart look more like you?

That's God's will.

That we would be conformed more and more to Jesus.

God's will is that Spokane would become more and more like the place Jesus envisions.

Right?

That's how you pray for God's will.

Right?

You learn through Scripture about what God values, and then you pray for that.

And then when you pray for that, you know what happens?

Those values become your values.

When you pray for it enough, you look and say, Boy, God, I really and it was funny because some of those values, guys, look really conservative, and some of those values look really liberal.

Right?

You pray more and more for vengeance to be replaced by forgiveness.

And you look and say, Oh man, that feels like, you know, my my hippie friends, you know, they're always about world peace.

You know, and you pray that more and more and more, and you start realizing, no, no, that's that's my heart now.

Right?

You you pray more and more now for for things that sinners would find mercy, and you realize, man, I really felt like a fundamentalist when I was praying that.

And I realized ultimately that's what people need the very most.

Right?

Is sinners because people really break the will of God, but God, in his infinite mercy, shows that to them because of the cross.

And you start praying that more and more and more, and you just realize that God's will, God's values now become yours.

And so then this is with the like on earth as it is in heaven part.

As you pray these things more and more and more, and you're saying, on earth as it is in heaven, you're saying, God, would your values, the values of heaven, make their way into earth?

God, would you help us make heaven, or excuse me, earth?

Would you help us make Spokane more like heaven?

Right?

When we say, would you on earth as it is in heaven?

That's what we're praying for, guys.

The earth would become like heaven, right?

Where God's perfect will is always done.

Right?

No more suffering, no more pain.

Right?

You look and say, can you imagine what God's will looks like when you start living it out?

Just day to day in your neighborhood, right?

Maybe you start imagining, these aren't things that would make the news, right?

God's will might simply look for you as you're praying this, right?

Is somebody bringing dinner to a grieving neighbor, right?

Maybe it's simply a teenager sitting with a kid at at Sacajewea or at Yashihara, right?

At Pepperzak, right?

At Lewis and Clark, and and sitting next to somebody who has no friends.

And I know for a lot of us, if you're a student or an adult, you look and say, wow, that feels almost too far.

I don't know if I'm gonna do that.

You look and say, but what if that's exactly God's will for us, right?

Living into the kingdom, right?

What if it's uh being a business owner that refuses to cheat a customer, right?

What if it's somebody visiting an elderly person who's lonely, right?

What if it's actually a church caring for a refugee family?

Right?

What if it's actually choosing forgiveness rather than revenge?

And that's us living into the kingdom of heaven leaking into earth slowly, bit by bit.

That's what we pray for.

That's how we live.

Guys, I'm gonna give you four things to pray for, then we're gonna close.

So when we pray, we pray that God's will would be done in our lives, the church, and the world at large.

Right?

We pray for God's will to be done in your life, our church, and then the the world at large.

Pray for God's kingdom to be extended.

Pray that the church might live into our calling.

And ultimately pray the earth would be more like heaven.

Let's pray now.

Father in heaven, you promise us that where we're all going is that there will eventually be no more tears, no more sorrows, Lord, because you will bind up all the wounds.

And Lord, we pray that you would do that today.

And God, even as we pray that, God, would you give us soft hearts so that we might be willing and able to be part of the answer to that prayer.

In Christ's name, we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

Please join us in person for community worship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.

We are located at 512 South Bernard Street, Spokane, Washington, 99204.